


only fools fall for you

by helenecixous



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-10-24 19:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10748319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenecixous/pseuds/helenecixous
Summary: Miranda is in the past. And each time you catch yourself missing her, missing New York, you scold yourself for being naïve, for looking at everything through those rose tinted glasses. You're a freelance journalist now, smart, put together, perfectly boring and interested in politics. Valentino who?





	1. Chapter 1

Quitting your job was like ending a relationship. A relationship with fashion, with Emily, with Nigel, with New York City.

With Miranda.

Not that you'd ever make that comparison out loud - just the thought of the expression that she'd wear if she heard you say that makes something inside of you shrivel up and die.

But on some technicalities, you do end relationships by quitting your job. Not with  _ them,  _ but with your friends - Lily, Nate. The ones who just couldn't bring themselves to like the shiny new you. You leave Nate before he moves to Boston, brush off his anger and tell him you're moving too. You sever all the ties with them as quickly and as coldly as Miranda herself, and you try not to think about how you're becoming more and more like her; try to extinguish that little fire that happens in your tummy when you look in the mirror and wonder whether she'd be proud of you now. Actually, you just try not to think about Miranda at all.

Your collection of the latest copies of  _ Runway _ line your shelves now simply because you're interested in fashion. And you don't  _ always  _ flick straight to the last glossy page, and your stomach doesn't  _ always  _ perform that queer little flip when you find the photo of her with your gaze and your fingertips. Sometimes you come to the last page, well,  _ last. _

You tell yourself and your dad that the only times you only really talk about her now are when you use her name - use her like she used you for so many months - to get jobs and interviews (and even sometimes dinner reservations, although you're less proud of that). And it works, so the ends justify the means. You get pretty much every job you ask for, and you tell yourself that the ten minutes that you spend with the tang of metal on your tongue and a slight rolling in your stomach are worth it. The jury’s still out on the hours that follow, hours spent gazing absentmindedly out of windows and at blank word documents, alone in your apartment in Paris with nothing but your cat, your laptop, and thoughts of Miranda Priestly turning on those steps to find you gone to keep you company.

You chew on that particular guilt for hours.

 

But that's all in the past. Miranda is in the past. And each time you catch yourself missing her, missing New York, you scold yourself for being naïve, for looking at everything through those rose tinted glasses. You're a freelance journalist now, smart, put together, perfectly boring and interested in politics. Valentino who? And you work hard to tell yourself this life is better; you're not surgically attached to a phone that won't stop ringing anymore; you're not repeating  _ hot. It has to be hot. Fresh, and hot, goddamnit I asked for HOT  _ to every barista in Starbucks you order from; you don't have to do impossible tasks, and the only unpublished manuscripts you have to deal with these days are your own.

 

“So you really used to work for Miranda Priestly?”

The girl sitting opposite you is lovely. All soft edges and a lilting French accent. She stirs her cocktail slowly, looks up at you through her eyelashes.

“Uh, yeah.” You smile at her, watch her sip her cocktail and run a hand through her blonde hair.

“I heard she's a real bitch.”

You blink. Sigh. Really didn't want to get into this tonight. Again. “She's not,” you say slowly. Carefully. “She's just good extremely good at her job. And, y’know, if she was a man, she'd be considered the best in the business.”

“You still defend her after you quit and saw how she drove away her husband? That’s interesting.”

“I didn't quit because of Miranda. In fact, Miranda's the reason I stayed for as long as I did.” You don’t say anything about her ex-husband, nothing about her personal life. And you try to ignore the something that’s bubbling in your stomach, the something that feels a lot like your notoriously quick temper. “Listen, we don’t have to talk about Miranda Priestly.”

She smiles tersely at you, changes the subject, and you decide before she’s even finished her drink that you can’t stand her. A sentiment that is perhaps too harsh, but you’re so tired of women who are afraid of success, afraid of power. Just because Miranda’s not  _ nice,  _ just because she’s not as soft as her fucking voice, she’s got to be satan incarnate. And you’ve grown so weary of defending her, of getting angry, of feeling impossibly defensive of this woman you convinced yourself you hated. You told yourself you hated her selfishness, you hated her for how entitled she is and for what she did to Nigel, and what she made you do to Emily, but the truth probably runs deeper. It’s probably more truthful to blame your confliction and your guilt on the way you  _ misplaced  _ that resentment. It wasn’t really her that you came to hate, it was the changes she was the catalyst for. She made you into somebody you barely recognised, and you were scared because you liked it.

You leave the bar after a hurried excuse about having to get back for your cat, and you’re neither disappointed nor surprised when she doesn’t offer you her number, doesn’t offer to share a taxi back, doesn’t say anything about seeing you again. And when you get home you’re happy to kick off your heels and peel off your dress and sink down onto your sofa with the telly on. You don’t think about Miranda, you don’t think about anything apart from the soft soreness of your feet and ankles from those heels you used to run around New York in.

 

“Andy? Andy Sachs?!”

The coffee shop is bustling, the kind of busy that provides a certain degree of anonymity but not enough to be noisy and distracting. You turn around, the spoon from your cappuccino still in your mouth, your eyes wide when you find him. “Nigel?”

“Andy!” He comes over to you, beaming, and you stand and hug him, feeling dreamlike as he grasps your arms and holds you still, tilting his head as he looks you up and down. “God, look at you!  _ What  _ is this you’re wearing.”

You laugh, lean forward and kiss his cheek before you offer him the seat opposite you and clear away your notebooks and laptop. “You’re in Paris!”

“Ah, Par-ee, the city of love.” He grins at you as he sits down, and he looks happier than when you last saw him. Lighter, almost. And then he wiggles his left hand at you, and you see the gold band that’s sitting snug on his finger.

“You didn’t,” you say, grabbing his hand and pulling it toward you. “Nigel, I’m  _ so  _ happy for you.”

“Thank you, darling,” he says, and he’s glowing. “His name is Steven, and we’ve been together for what feels like a lifetime.”

You listen as he tells you the details of his life now, tells you how he’s actually living a few streets away, and has been for the past seven months - one month longer than you have.

“ _ How  _ have we not run into each other before now, oh, listen, it must be fate!” And then he stops, looks at you seriously. “Have you seen her then? Miranda?”

“What? Miranda’s here? For how long?”

“She decided that Paris isn’t only the city of love, but the city of fashion too. Darling, when you took off it just wasn’t the same. Emily’s running the office in New York now, she’s got  _ three  _ assistants now, would you believe, that’s even more than Miranda needs, and Miranda moved here. I came with her, she gave me a promotion - I design for  _ Runway  _ properly now.”

You smile, trying to process the thousand facts he just bombarded you with. “That’s- that’s great, Nigel, I’m so happy for you, really. She finally paid you back, huh?”

“Miranda knew what she was doing,” he says, and you know that he means it. The look that he’s fixing you with - stern, silently challenging - tells you that. “She always knows what she’s doing. And let me tell you, Andy, you leaving like you did was a very bad idea. It hit her hard.”

“Nigel-”

“I’m not here to tell you off. There’s nothing either of us can do now to change it, and you did what you felt like you had to do at the time. I just…” he sighs, and looks at you sadly. “I wish you hadn’t.”

You nod, and for some reason you don’t feel bad. Can’t bring yourself to feel bad. You’re still wading through the idea that they’re  _ here,  _ in Paris, and have been for longer than you have. “Is she around?”

He nods, and stands. “She’ll be in here shortly, I imagine. I came in to grab us a table, but I’ll tell her you’re here and leave you two alone.”

“Nigel, wait-” you try, but he’s gone, leaving you with little but a half finished cappuccino and a horrible sense of dread that settles deep and heavy in the pit of your stomach.

And then she’s here. Miranda Priestly. She’s standing in front of you, looking for all the world like she just can’t believe that it’s actually you. You half rise, and she sits, takes off her sunglasses, and looks at you with that intensity that you’d only half forgotten.

“Andrea,” she says, and the slow gentle lilt of her voice makes you shiver.

“Miranda.” You’re quiet, in awe, feel like you’re at a job interview, meeting her again for the first time. “How are you?”

“Fine,” she says, distractedly, like she’s less interested in small talk and more interested in seeing how long she can stare at you for before you freak out. “Fine. Good. Nigel and I and  _ Runway  _ are doing well.”

“I’m glad.”

She nods, or rather, lifts her chin in that  _ way,  _ and you half expect yourself to wither away under the look she’s giving you. “I’m happy to see you’re doing well,” she says. “I’ve been following your blog.” Her tone is so removed, so detached, you feel like crawling under the table and only coming out when she’s gone. “I’m glad to know that it was, um, oil spills and carbon emissions that captured your attention so effectively.”

You wince, and run a hand through your hair, trying not to focus on her collarbones and the way she’s sitting like she’s on a throne, trying to muster up the defense you’ve been using to justify yourself to yourself for this long. “Miranda, I’m sorry, it - I didn’t - I couldn’t do what you do.”

“You’re right.” She raises a hand to silence you, and there’s something about her that seems softer. “You couldn’t. But you could leave your  _ Runway  _ family in the midst of what was about to be the biggest upheaval of their careers. And you could leave Nigel, and Emily, and you could leave me at the start of a divorce, with a husband who wanted to take away my daughters and my career by splashing my name all over the papers. The harpy’s at it again, they said. And I suppose that takes skill, doesn’t it. Moving away, moving countries, building a career off the backs of people you’d left to burn.”

A part of you thinks you might vomit, and even though your hands are clasped in your lap they’re trembling. “Miranda- it wasn’t right for me. I’m sorry, I am, but I couldn’t have helped any of that. Not really. I couldn’t do anything that Nigel and Emily couldn’t already do ten times better and in half the time-” You interrupt yourself because she’s smiling. Just a small quirk of her lips, and that’s enough to stop you dead in your tracks.

“It’s okay,” she says, waving a hand as though she’s dispelling your feeble apologies. “Here.”

She reaches into her bag, pulls out a piece of A4 paper, and slides it across the table for you to read. It’s a list, and then you realise, it’s a list of the designers, photographers, editors, writers, and models, who promised Miranda that they would follow her if she chose to leave  _ Runway.  _ You look up at her, and then back down at the list, and it takes you a moment to get to the end, but when you do, you laugh. Because there, printed neatly, is your name.

“I didn’t- I didn’t follow you here, Miranda.”

“Oh but you did.” She takes the list from you and slides it back into her bag. “Andrea, I came to Paris first. You followed me, unknowingly, unwittingly, but you did. And you’re here.”

You stare at her.

“I don’t want to be your assistant, that’s not what-”

“I’m not asking you to be my assistant,” she says. “I’m asking you to be our first journalist.”

You could cry. You’re half hoping that in a second you’ll wake up to your alarm blaring.

“You miss it,” she continues. “I know you do. You miss that shiny life, the marble floors, the high ceilings. You miss the clackers and the dresses and the designers. I can see it in your eyes, Andrea, in the way you look at life.”

You miss  _ her. _

“Work for me. Work with me. With  _ us.” _

“Is that all I am to you, Miranda?” You gesture to her bag. “Just another person to follow you around wherever you go? Another person for you to bat your eyelashes at and get whatever you want? Because I’m more than that.”

“I know you’re more than that.”

_ I don’t want that life,  _ you wish you could say. And you’re so close, you’re  _ so  _ close to getting it out, but you realise that it’s not true. She knows you, right now, she knows you better than you do. And seeing her again, seeing Nigel, the thought of spending time with them again, of being able to work with them, to be equal to them, it feels electric.  _ Everyone wants to be us,  _ she’d said. You hate that she’s always right.

“Miranda…”

“Just think about it,” she says, collecting her scarf and bag into her arms. “Okay? Andrea? Just think about it.” She slides a small business card over the table to you, and you don’t even have to look at it to know the information that’s on it. You still know that phone number off by heart.

She stands, and so do you, and she reaches out to tuck a long strand of hair behind your ear, a fond smile on her face. “I’ve missed you.”

You smile despite yourself, and you nod. “Yeah,” you say, taking a deep breath. “I’ve missed you too. Are you sticking around Paris now for good?”

She winds her scarf around her neck and nods, and then she leans forward and presses a chaste kiss to your cheek. “Will I be seeing you soon?” she asks.

There’s a warmth that spreads through you when you nod, like the strongest relief you’ve ever felt.

“Good,” she says, softly. And then she cups your cheek and presses a lingering kiss to your lips. “It really just wasn’t the same without you.”

And then she’s gone, and you’re reeling. Back to this, you think, pulling your laptop closer to you and pocketing the business card. Back to spinning into the great unknown, back to being in love with Miranda Priestly. There’s no denying it now.

You press your fingers to your lips where you can still feel her kiss, and you can’t help but grin to yourself as you finish your cappuccino. Next time, you tell yourself. Next time you see her, you’ll kiss her over a couple of very hot Starbucks cups.


	2. unsteady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There, you think triumphantly. See, you’re not the only one around here who can employ the shock factor. Do you see what you’ve made me, Miranda? You’ve made me you, only worse; I’m worse than you, because I still have some semblance of humanity to balance out the insanity._

All the Starbucks in the world can’t make somebody love you. It can’t make Miranda love you. It can’t make Miranda any less insufferable - and why would it? Why  _ should  _ it? She’s spent her entire life pulling strings and pressing buttons and playing people for the sole intention of getting what she wants, so why should this be any different? What had you been expecting, when you started working with her again, some girlish fantasy of poring over pictures and plans of dresses and shirts and scarves with her, huddled close with coffees between you as you expend all of your energy drinking up her soft croons as she brushes your hair back behind your ear and you write award winning pieces of journalism for her and her magazine? Had you truly been expecting stolen kisses in dark rooms, to move in with her and have room in her closet for your overpriced designer gear, to make her tea in the morning and share crumpets in bed?

Honestly, yes.

But also no, you’d not expected that - not  _ really.  _ Wanted it, sure, but expected it? You don’t expect anything from Miranda, not really, not anything but the cold shoulder and her smarmy comments that still make you squirm. But on the other hand, you hadn’t even got that. You don’t spend  _ any  _ time with her, and she’d not done anything but nod at you when your application had been approved and move on to terrorise her latest assistant who can’t possibly keep up with her unrelenting demands. And you hate that, and you hate that you’ve become so like her; you find yourself judging her assistant whose name you’d not even bothered to learn, and you hate that you spend your days holed up with Nigel because he’s the only one who seems genuinely  _ delighted  _ that you’re back.

You hate it. You hate Miranda. You hate that you can still feel her lips on yours, hate that she’s manipulated you into being back here, hate that you  _ are  _ here, that you let yourself be pulled back in. It’s like it’s her final ace - that she’s finally proved to you that she’s got you. Not in any capacity that’s helpful to you, of course, but  _ she’s got you.  _ And you stay up late, sometimes until four in the morning, when the sun’s coming up and the world’s waking up with far too much caffeine in your blood, staring at your laptop screen and tapping out some bullshit article about the latest fashion fuck ups. And isn’t that  _ hilarious.  _ Because aren’t you the latest fashion fuck up? Aren’t you the one who has, once again, given up everything for this life. Aren’t you the one who let yourself be played, and manipulated, and used, and aren’t you the one who is still so desperate to gain some semblance of approval that she is so staunchly refusing you?

Yes. To all of the above.

You’re furious.

You rant to Nigel, mostly without words, and you think that he must sense it. He must be able to feel the fury and frustration roll off you in waves, and he understands. You know he understands it, because he doesn’t reprimand you. He just works alongside you in companionable silence and sometimes you both go out for drinks or a meal, sometimes with his husband, sometimes not. It all feels meaningless, and you worry that you’re becoming so consumed by this frustration of not even seeing Miranda in passing anymore that one day you’ll wake up and it’ll be the only thing that keeps you going. He doesn’t defend her to you, doesn’t really talk about her at all, and you find that any conversation about her or about  _ Runway  _ makes something inside you clench up, which is kind of inconvenient, when it’s her that you work for, and it that you write for.

 

After about a week of too little sleep, you confront her. You hadn’t been intending to, not consciously, but she passes you in the corridor, on her way to some meeting or maybe a dance rehearsal for the girls, and you grab her arm and bring her to an abrupt halt.

“I need to talk to you.”

She looks at you, and you get the sense that she’s looking right through you. She lifts the sunglasses from her eyes and pushes them to the top of her head, and you only vaguely register that you still think she looks fantastic with her hair pushed back before she sighs. “I’m busy,” she says, and her tone is dripping with indifference.

You shake your head, your hand still on her arm. “I don’t think this will take up too much of your time.”

“Andrea-”

“Miranda.”

There’s something in your tone that causes her to raise an eyebrow, and she inclines her head just slightly and shoos you with her hands. “My office.”

You close the door behind you and you’re pleased to see that for a split second she looks like she doesn’t know what’s coming, like she doesn’t know what to expect.  _ There,  _ you think triumphantly.  _ See, you’re not the only one around here who can employ the shock factor. Do you see what you’ve made me, Miranda? You’ve made me you, only worse; I’m worse than you, because I still have some semblance of  _ humanity  _ to balance out the insanity. _

“Can we keep it quick?” she asks, eyeing you as she sinks down into her desk chair. “I’ve got a meeting with the board about getting Prada to-”

“What am I doing here?” you interrupt.

“Well I had been hoping that you knew the answer to that, Andrea, we seem to be here because you had a, uh… pressing urge to talk that just couldn’t wait until after my meetings.”

“I mean  _ here,  _ Miranda. At  _ Runway.  _ Why did you ask me to come back? You have an entire backlog of journalists you could have employed to ignore.”

She blinks at you, and you can almost see the realisation dawn on her. “You’re angry with me because I haven’t been paying you any attention.” And somehow, she’s spot on, and somehow, she manages to make it sound not as petulant as it could have.

“That’s one reason.” You refuse to let her set you on the back foot, and push on. “Why do you do this, Miranda? You just push people and use people and throw them away and pick them up again and make them feel like they’re  _ something  _ to you, just so you can get things out of them.”  _ What am I,  _ you want to ask,  _ god, why did you kiss me? Why did you bring me here, why can’t you just be a human.  _ And you’re angry enough to pose the questions, angry enough to yell them at her, curious to see whether she would wither away, whether she would be ashamed by what she’s done to you. But you’re terrified of what her answer might be, terrified that her facade wouldn’t crack, and you are so  _ sure  _ that it is a facade, that she doesn’t go around kissing every employee she wants backing her, she can’t possibly do that.

“Are you asking me, or telling me?” she asks, and you imagine walking away for good. Walking away and slamming the door and refusing to have anything to do with her or this life ever again.

You meet her gaze evenly and say nothing, and the silence spins out between you, so thick and heavy with your history and your unguarded anger that she eventually, eventually sighs and runs a hand through her hair.

“What do you want, Andrea? Hm?”

You laugh derisively, and there’s a slight undertone of manic hilarity that sounds foreign to your own ears. “What do  _ I  _ want, Miranda? Are you seriously asking me that?”

She looks at you calmly, and nods.

“I want to know why you kissed me. I want to know what I’m doing back here, when I came here for  _ you,  _ and you know that, I want to know what you  _ expect  _ from me.”

“I expect you to do your job.”

“So, what, you go around kissing every journalist who works here? Or was that just one of your moves? This isn’t  _ fair,  _ Miranda, you can’t just go around expecting-”

She stands up and pinches the bridge of her nose, and she looks so small, so vulnerable, that it catches you off guard and you falter. “Of course I don’t.” She doesn’t seem to be able to look at you, so she walks to the window and stares out of it, choosing her next words carefully before she turns back and picks up her phone. “Emily,” she says into it, and you notice that her knuckles are white. “Cancel my meetings. Rearrange for tomorrow, and get me two coffees for now and a reservation for two at Le Cinq for tonight.” She ends the call and returns to the window. “Andrea,” she says to the street, so quietly that it’s almost a whisper. “If you’re here for a long and heartfelt declaration of love then I’m disappointed, but not as disappointed as you will be.”

“I’m not here for that. I’m here for the truth, that’s all I want. I just want you to be honest with me, I can’t carry on not knowing where I stand with you.”

She half turns, rolling one of her rings between her fingers as she contemplates what you’ve said and considers her response. Your anger has dissipated and has been replaced with a tenuous, fragile thing that feels a lot like anxious hope.

“I’m not  _ good  _ at relationships. I’m not designed for them, and this job isn’t designed for them. It’s a cutthroat business, if you show weakness for just one second… Forget a backlog of journalists who want your job, Andrea, there’s a whole world of people out there who want mine.”

“I know, I  _ get  _ that-”

“I kissed you,” she continues, sounding almost wistful as she looks down at the street, at the lives passing beneath her, oblivious to this conversation you’re having, “because I… I wanted to. And I wanted to for no ulterior reason, for no… It wasn’t part of a plan, or a scheme, I just  _ wanted to kiss you.”  _ She looks up at you then, and you feel your resolve crumble around you, leaving you bare and empty and wanting.

“Miranda…”

“You left us. And I thought- well, maybe I could’ve been clearer with you from the start, from the day you walked in with those Chanel boots that Nigel picked out for you. Maybe I should’ve been upfront then. But then everything happened the way it did and you left and I believed that was what you wanted. Or maybe you believed that was what you wanted, I’m not sure.”

You walk around the desk toward her and stand close; you want her to keep looking at you, like she’s  _ seeing  _ you for the very first time. You want her to keep talking, for her to show herself to you, for her to drop the games and the pretenses, but more than that, more than anything, you want her to kiss you again, and again, and again, you want her to kiss you with feeling, for her to put it all into a kiss, for her to stop talking and show you what she means in a much more intimate way.

“I’m sorry that you feel I’ve been playing you… or manipulating you. It’s nothing like that - it’s more that you’ve become somebody who is so capable, so… strong, that I don’t know what to do with you.” She smiles wryly and rolls her lithe shoulders in a little shrug. “I just don’t know what to do with you, Andrea.”

You don’t know what to say, and suddenly it hurts to look at her - it starts a fire that seems to start in your fingertips and spreads like your blood is gasoline, making your entire body to thrum with this unknown thing that you want to call desire. Because you do, you desire her in a way you’ve never desired anyone or anything before in your entire life, so much so that it makes you ache. And maybe it would have been easier to keep on hating her, or pretending to hate her, because this weight that settles on your chest is making it hard to breathe but your hands are on her hips and hers are suddenly on yours and she’s pulling you close to her, and you’re going. You’re moving to her, with her, you’re flinging yourself into space with nothing but Miranda Priestly to keep you safe and sane and tethered, however insubstantially. You’re giving in to her, you’re tilting your head and she’s tilting hers and your lips are meeting and hers are still soft, they’re still warm, and she still smells like that perfume that reminds you of cold forests and heady bonfires, and her hands are still assured as they tangle into your hair and  _ oh my god,  _ you think, as the small of your back meets her desk and she crowds you there, keeps you pinned with her body and the weight of everything unspoken,  _ this is it. I’m kissing her. And she’s kissing me. And this one,  _ this time,  _ it’s a beginning. _

“Miranda,” you think you breathe, and even as she pulls back to let you speak you find yourself following, keeping your lips mere millimeters from hers. “I don’t- I’m-”

She kisses you again, and nothing about it is hesitant. “Do you want to come to dinner with me?” she asks, her lips moving against yours, her breath coming out in warm, short whispers, as though she doesn’t already know the answer.

You nod, revelling in the feeling of her hands cupping the sides of your neck. “I suppose I could,” you murmur.

“Good,” she says, and you wonder whether her lipstick is smeared across your own lips, and you wonder whether everybody outside this office knows what’s happening inside it. “We’ve got a table reserved.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok yep i definitely bowed to peer pressure bc y'all wanted a sequel ,, so there you go lmao but i'm definitely done w this now!!


End file.
